Just the Ticket

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Ticketmaster Independence Day is on a Friday this year, and I've been devoting the majority of my review months to the films of Maniac Cop director William Lustig , so as you can probably figure out from the thumbnail, I'm reviewing the 1996 holiday slasher, Uncle Sam . It's not the first "killer dresses in holiday mascot costume and uses silly, thematically appropriate means to depopulate small-town America" movie (from the 70s to the early 90s, just about every holiday—especially Christmas and Halloween—got at least one), and with low-budget fare like Thankskilling and Bunnyman , revival-era mysteries like Valentine , and the fairly recent Grindhouse trailer adaptation, Thanksgiving , it certainly wasn't the last. But it was definitely one of them. Uncle Sam is at once an obscure relic of the 90s that somehow feels dated in its own decade, an after-school special PSA about domestic violence and war fanaticism, a Willi...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The Ticketmaster. I'm not doing the Flashdance  byline twice , Ticketholders! But I am still blogging like I've never blogged before because it's the final day of critical content in the month of Maniac  May , and what I've come to be reminded of in today's movie up for review is that what we see or hear can be just as traumatic as what is done to us. Hate speech, crimes against those whom we identify with, the trickledown effect of incompetent and/or malicious leadership on our ability to live our lives in comfort, the commoditization and sterile regurgitation of the things that once brought us joy, the systemic erasure of memory by agenda-driven alternative facts and "superior" pressure (in contrast to peer  pressure, and framed with sarcastic double-finger-wags) to drag present society kicking and screaming into a future it cannot afford; this and more is enough to drive the average first-worlder insane. At the twist o...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. The TicketManiac, TicketManiac On the Web, Blogging like I've never Blogged before. I'm not crazy, Ticketholders! I mean, it's not like I'm trying to invade a neutral country or prove that Fort Knox is empty or circumvent the Constitution by running for a third term or letting dead golfers influence foreign policy or finding sense in the ramblings of a...man?...who would do such things. And it's not like I think I can fill a studio apartment with mannequins covered in blood without anyone noticing. I'm just overcaffeinated after a long, hard day at work so that I can crank out the copy of this review and devote tomorrow (I'm writing this on Wednesday) to yard work and setting up my new phone that finally arrived almost two weeks after my birthday with almost no correspondence and hundreds of hours of financial and time-related anxiety to fill my brain. So, while I'm super-happy to have a new phone and not be stresse...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a. the Ticketmaster. Merry Christmas, Ticketholders! I decided this would be the movie series I would review for the holidays during last year's Christmas Special review of the Lethal Weapon  series because Tom Atkins , who played strong-armed father Michael Hunsaker in that series' first entry, also has a role in the Maniac Cop  trilogy. Also, the second movie takes place around Christmas, and the Maniac Cop series features some little gifts that I wasn't expecting to bring warmth to my heart the way they did. Financially, I have been forced to lower my expectations of what I want for Christmas this year, so I will settle for any extra hours I can get, and keep trying to get on as many Copywriting Nice Lists as possible so that I'm not crushed by financial responsibility in the new year. Barring that, all I want for Christmas is that you please remember to  Become A Ticketholder  if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of this...